William Congreve

Name: The Way of the World — ACT II.
Author: William Congreve

Summary

“The Way of the World — ACT II.”, published in 1700, is a work by William Congreve. It explores elements such as lover, Mirabell and Waitwell.

Quotes from The Way of the World — ACT II. (William Congreve)

William Congreve, The Way of the World — ACT II. (1700)

“ MRS. FAIN. Female frailty! We must all come to it, if we live to be old, and feel the craving of a false appetite when the true is decayed.
MIRA. An old woman's appetite is depraved like that of a girl. 'Tis the green-sickness of a second childhood, and, like the faint offer of a latter spring, serves but to usher in the fall, and withers in an affected bloom.
MRS. FAIN. Here's your mistress.
SCENE V. [To them] MRS. MILLAMANT, WITWOUD, MINCING.
MIRA. Here she comes, i'faith, full sail, with her fan spread and streamers out, and a shoal of fools for tenders.—Ha, no, I cry her mercy. ”

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Source: Wikisource

William Congreve, The Way of the World — ACT II. (1700)

“ MRS. MAR. True, 'tis an unhappy circumstance of life that love should ever die before us, and that the man so often should outlive the lover. But say what you will, 'tis better to be left than never to have been loved. To pass our youth in dull indifference, to refuse the sweets of life because they once must leave us, is as preposterous as to wish to have been born old, because we one day must be old. For my part, my youth may wear and waste, but it shall never rust in my possession.
MRS. FAIN. Then it seems you dissemble an aversion to mankind only in compliance to my mother's humour. ”

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Source: Wikisource

William Congreve, The Way of the World — ACT II. (1700)

“ Your servant, Sir.—B'w'y, Waitwell.
SCENE IX. MIRABELL, WAITWELL.
WAIT. Sir Rowland, if you please. The jade's so pert upon her preferment she forgets herself.
MIRA. Come, sir, will you endeavour to forget yourself—and transform into Sir Rowland?
WAIT. Why, sir, it will be impossible I should remember myself. Married, knighted, and attended all in one day! 'Tis enough to make any man forget himself. The difficulty will be how to recover my acquaintance and familiarity with my former self, and fall from my transformation to a reformation into Waitwell. ”

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Source: Wikisource

William Congreve, The Way of the World — ACT II. (1700)

“ I shan't endure to be reprimanded nor instructed; 'tis so dull to act always by advice, and so tedious to be told of one's faults, I can't bear it. Well, I won't have you, Mirabell—I'm resolved—I think—you may go—ha, ha, ha! What would you give that you could help loving me?
MIRA. I would give something that you did not know I could not help it.
MILLA. Come, don't look grave then. Well, what do you say to me?
MIRA. I say that a man may as soon make a friend by his wit, or a fortune by his honesty, as win a woman with plain-dealing and sincerity.
MILLA. Sententious Mirabell! ”

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Source: Wikisource

William Congreve, The Way of the World — ACT II. (1700)

“ Witwoud.
SCENE VI. MRS. MILLAMANT, MIRABELL, MINCING.
MIRA. I would beg a little private audience too. You had the tyranny to deny me last night, though you knew I came to impart a secret to you that concerned my love.
MILLA. You saw I was engaged.
MIRA. Unkind! You had the leisure to entertain a herd of fools: things who visit you from their excessive idleness, bestowing on your easiness that time which is the incumbrance of their lives. How can you find delight in such society? It is impossible they should admire you; they are not capable ”

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Source: Wikisource

William Congreve, The Way of the World — ACT II. (1700)

“ MIRA. Ay, ay; suffer your cruelty to ruin the object of your power, to destroy your lover—and then how vain, how lost a thing you'll be! Nay, 'tis true; you are no longer handsome when you've lost your lover: your beauty dies upon the instant. For beauty is the lover's gift: 'tis he bestows your charms:- your glass is all a cheat. ”

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Source: Wikisource

William Congreve, The Way of the World — ACT II. (1700)

“ Why, you make no more of making of lovers, madam, than of making so many card-matches.
MILLA. One no more owes one's beauty to a lover than one's wit to an echo. They can but reflect what we look and say: vain empty things if we are silent or unseen, and want a being. ”

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Source: Wikisource

William Congreve, The Way of the World — ACT II. (1700)

“ FAIN. To let you know I see through all your little arts.—Come, you both love him, and both have equally dissembled your aversion. Your mutual jealousies of one another have made you clash till you have both struck fire. ”

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Source: Wikisource

William Congreve, The Way of the World — ACT II. (1700)

“ I knew Fainall to be a man lavish of his morals, an interested and professing friend, a false and a designing lover, yet one whose wit and outward fair behaviour have gained a reputation with the town, enough to make that woman stand excused who has suffered herself to be won by his addresses. ”

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Source: Wikisource

William Congreve, The Way of the World — ACT II. (1700)

“ Now you must know they could not commend one if one was not handsome. Beauty the lover's gift! Lord, what is a lover, that it can give? Why, one makes lovers as fast as one pleases, and they live as long as one pleases, and they die as soon as one pleases ”

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Source: Wikisource

William Congreve, The Way of the World — ACT II. (1700)

“ A better man ought not to have been sacrificed to the occasion; a worse had not answered to the purpose. When you are weary of him you know your remedy.
MRS. FAIN. I ought to stand in some degree of credit with you, Mirabell.
MIRA. In justice to you, I have made you privy to my whole design, and put it in your power to ruin or advance my fortune.
MRS. FAIN. Whom have you instructed to represent your pretended uncle?
MIRA. Waitwell, my servant.
MRS. FAIN. He is an humble servant to Foible, my mother's woman, and may win her to your interest. ”

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Source: Wikisource

William Congreve, The Way of the World — ACT II. (1700)

“ Men are ever in extremes; either doting or averse. While they are lovers, if they have fire and sense, their jealousies are insupportable: and when they cease to love (we ought to think at least) they loathe, they look upon us with horror and distaste, they meet us like the ghosts of what we were, and as from such, fly from us. ”

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Source: Wikisource

William Congreve, The Way of the World — ACT II. (1700)

“ We may affect endearments to each other, profess eternal friendships, and seem to dote like lovers; but 'tis not in our natures long to persevere. Love will resume his empire in our breasts, and every heart, or soon or late, receive and readmit him as its lawful tyrant. ”

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Source: Wikisource

William Congreve, The Way of the World — ACT II. (1700)

“ To think of a whirlwind, though 'twere in a whirlwind, were a case of more steady contemplation, a very tranquillity of mind and mansion. A fellow that lives in a windmill has not a more whimsical dwelling than the heart of a man that is lodged in a woman. ”

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Source: Wikisource

William Congreve, The Way of the World — ACT II. (1700)

“ Your fortune has been bestowed as the prodigality of your love would have it, in pleasures which we both have shared. Yet, had not you been false I had e'er this repaid it. 'Tis true—had you permitted Mirabell with Millamant to have stolen their marriage, my lady had been incensed beyond all means of reconcilement: Millamant had forfeited the moiety of her fortune, which then would have descended to my wife. And wherefore did I marry but to make lawful prize of a rich widow's wealth, and squander it on love and you?
MRS. MAR. Deceit and frivolous pretence!
FAIN. Death, am I not married? ”

William Congreve

Summary

Quotes from The Way of the World — ACT II. (William Congreve)

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